


Why I Stopped Writing

by demonvampire180



Category: Original Work
Genre: creative non-fiction, non-fiction, personal non-fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 02:49:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12333948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonvampire180/pseuds/demonvampire180
Summary: Just a quick personal piece about the struggles of writing, and how the passion has left me in recent years.





	Why I Stopped Writing

Do you ever feel the need to write? With no uncertainty you feel the urge to jot down your ideas on paper, forgetting punctuation and capitals and... Well everything really. I used to feel like that. A lot. I could sit down for hours on end writing anything and everything that came to mind. It was freeing, and enjoyable. And I thought I was good at it.

As I got older the desire to write waned until it was like I was looking at a star in a galaxy far off in the distance. I had lost my passion when I realized that nothing I wrote was going to be published. Writing for me was no longer enough; I craved the attention and praise that published authors often received. It wasn't that I wanted the recognition of J.K. Rowling, or Stephen King. I didn't need to be known like Ann Rice, or Ernest Hemingway. Nonetheless I wanted the ability to shout, “I'm published! You can read my novel in paperback!” That would be enough. Most days I spend waiting for that email to say my work has gotten kudos from online platforms, or the once in a blue moon review I may get. (Though lately, more often than not, it is criticism, not praise.)

When I was younger, I loved getting my ideas into words. I didn't care about cohesive. I didn't care about believable. When I wrote fanfiction, it didn't matter if I changed the pre-made characters to fit my narrative. Since I _could_ write it, I _would_ write it. Years passed, and I soon realized that many people read even fanfiction in canon with the actual series, and heavily criticized work that was out of character. The more reviews I got telling me how they enjoyed the story, but the characters were no longer themselves, the more I realized that perhaps I was not the writer I thought I was. The joy of writing I had in my heart was already beginning to fade. I had made my original fanfiction account in January of 2007. It's now near the end of 2017; in ten years, less than fifty stories were published to the site, and of the fifty published, less than ten were ever completed.

One of my faults as a writer is that I lose interest. I may love the idea of a story when I set out to write it. I know what I want to happen, I know _how_ I want it to happen, but when I go to execute it I can't. Perhaps it's because I feel inadequate as a writer – the story I want written is not the one I'm writing – or perhaps it's because it's a story that I want to read that has been authored by somebody else. Many a times my stories come from fleeting infatuations with TV shows and the like. When the interest in the show vanishes, so does the will to write what was being written. How, then, does one manage to write anything at all?

The simple answer is they don't. I have files and files of stories that were started that never made it past the first page. I have files dedicated to stories that never made it past the first word. All they have is an idea written at the top of the page never to be seen again. I don't know how to create characters. I don't know how to create fantastic worlds, or even worlds based off of real life. I don't know how to research and wonder and ponder and this or that. That is why I write fanfiction. The world is all laid out for me, and now all I have to do is tweak it. Yet somehow, there are authors who make even the most fanatical worlds seem real. They make it seem as though their world is part of the canon world and I can't do that. I can't keep enough interest in anything to do the necessary research to make sure things in the world belong. I can't. I don't know how to.

And this is why I gave up writing. I cannot write if I cannot make people feel emotions. I cannot write if I cannot make a cohesive world for people to become immersed in. I cannot write if I do not feel the passion that every author has. This is why I gave it up. This is why I envy those who write. They are doing something I will _never_ be able to do.

 


End file.
